The top 10 stories in IT last week

BOSTON, MA, USA, NOVEMBER 26, 2010This week was a busy one in IT news, with the European Parliament giving the OK to the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, SAP being slapped with a US$1.3 billion penalty because employees of its now-defunct TomorrowNow subsidiary stole corporate materials from Oracle, and Attachmate's plan to buy Novell for a whopping US$2.2 billion. And those were just the biggest of the headlinesthere was plenty more as well.

4.BP ignored safety software advice to save time, oil spill investigators find: BP ignored safety software that pointed to stability concerns before its well exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a presentation slide from U.S. investigators of the disaster. The slide was briefly posted at the Oil Spill Commission's website before being removed, but The New York Times published a screenshot of the slide, showing "risky" steps that BP and partners Halliburton and Transocean made to save time.

6.Acer unveils tablets to run Windows, Android: Acer showed off tablet computers this week that will run Windows and Android, adding some fuel to that ever-hotter market. Alas, the tablets are not due out for the annual holiday shopping frenzy, but should be available after the first of the year.

7.Teen gang admit huge Zeus Trojan fraud: A gang of teenagers in the U.K. admitted to being the brains behind an online forum that stole and marketed credit card numbers and other personal data worth some £12 million (US$18 million).

8.Swedish judge confirms Pirate Bay convictions on appeal: Three of the defendants convicted of running The Pirate Bay, and therefore being accessories in committing copyright crimes, lost their appeals this week. Although the judge reduced the prison sentences of each, he also raised the amount of the fine they must collectively pay. A fourth defendant has yet to be tried.